Advocacy in Public Health Nutrition - Assignment Help

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Assignment 1: Advocacy in Public Health Nutrition (25% of total grade) You and your group have been invited to comment on potential policies to address the rising issue of obesity in Australia at a (Mock) Senate hearing.

This Senate hearing will consist of a panel of Senators (Senior Government officials) who will hear various arguments for and against the proposed public health policies. Based on the views presented by your group, the Senators will formulate recommendations to put forward for legislative action in parliament. To ensure that policies are in favor of your group, it is imperative that you present your arguments clearly and convincingly.

You will be allocated the following topic related to prevention measures for tackling obesity.

There should be mandatory 'labelling' of junk food on food packages using an easy to understand system such as the 'traffic light system'

The purpose of this assignment is for you to:

• Critically consider arguments for a particular stance on a contentious public health issue

through examining and analysing current arguments and available evidence of these

• Identify specific public health policies and activities related to a particular stance that can be adopted to contribute towards public health

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You will choose

a stance on the topic e.g. either ‘for’ or ‘against’. You will be expected to undertake individual research on this topic.

*Your individual stance could be different to the group stance, and therefore the focus of this assignment would be undertaking critical analysis of the available evidence and measures in support of your position.

You should also pick a particular ‘group’ whose views you will represent in the Senate hearing e.g.

Food industry, Parent’s Jury, Obesity Researchers, Public Health Nutritionists, etc.

This is important to help you frame your arguments and give them focus (this is important because there are many angles and perspectives that could be

taken on the topic!). Clearly identifying your ‘group’ or who

you are representing will also help your audience understand what perspectives/basis your arguments are coming from.

In this assignment, you are required to write a report (up to 2000 words) which will act as a background paper to prepare you for Assignment 2 (Mock Senate hearing).

Your report should contain the following:

• A clearly outlined stance for your topic
• Key background information including the need for obesity to be addressed as a public health issue (supported by key evidence, statistics, data, etc), definitions and explanations of key terms related to your
• Arguments supporting your topic and stance: outline at least 2 key arguments supporting your stance for your allocated topic and quote supporting evidence, thus explaining your
• Critique as well as identify gaps and flaws in current evidence, unanswered questions for your argument, as well as strengths and limitations of existing Australian policies or regulatory frameworks (can be mandatory or voluntarily enforced) related to your topic and stance.
• Critique at least one argument for the opposite stance for your topic, quoting and critiquing available literature to support your argument.
• Proposed course of action: specific details of a public health measure that should be implemented at a population level. Details should include what should be done, who is responsible for implementation, and who is responsible for governance.

You will be marked on:

• Your ability to critically analyse and discuss arguments and evidence related to your topic stance and opposition
• Your ability to identify and critique relevant Australian public health policies or regulatory frameworks related to your topic and stance to support addressing obesity on a population level as well as propose appropriate course of action
• Your ability to communicate the above coherently, clearly and succinctly in written form Please see marking rubric for more

Format: Word limit 2000 words (excluding references). Use referencing styles: APA 7th

Tips for Assignments 1 and 2

• Provide a good rationale for the need for change- Why address obesity?
• Provide rationale- why implement the policy related to your topic/stance or why not?
• Remember to reference all statements- need to ensure that statements are well supported by evidence/research rather than being generalisations
• Cite actual data/evidence when discussing statements

E.g. rather than saying ‘evidence suggests that... ’ , say

‘According to a 2019 study by Boyd et al investigating the links between SES and food choice, those who were low SES were 1.5 times more likely to choose. ’

• Critically examine all arguments

E.g. rather than just stating facts, discuss further-> so what? What does this mean? What are the implications for this? Relate back to your main argument

• Critically examine arguments from your opposition 

• Apart from just stating the arguments, critically discuss the implications of these
• Then add your own evidence and rebuttal to these
• This shows that you can demonstrate the ability to critically evaluate information from different angles-> a really important skill to demonstrate for a third year student!

• Understand what public health policy is and the role it plays in population health!
• When proposing your policy, you need to be clear about

• What it is- What is the policy (make it explicit)
• Provide details of the policy e.g. what amount of tax/ what type of labelling on foods/ what type of ban on junk food ads

• Name policy action areas related to your policy

• Who will implement/enforce/monitor these?
• What other components need to be implemented to make your policy happen?
• Policy action areas should be high level, population-wide actions, rather than individual based actions